


Catch a Falling Star

by Maygra



Category: Smallville
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-10-21
Updated: 2001-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-01 13:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maygra/pseuds/Maygra





	Catch a Falling Star

Disclaimer: Smallville isn't mine -- nor are the characters. They all belong to DC comics and The WB. 

 

Catch A Falling Star  
By Maygra

"I'll get the gate, Dad," Clark sings out as the last of the cows trot through, lining up at the troughs looking for their mash.

He can pour the mash and watch his son at the same time; Clark riding the gate closed like he's done since he was five, since he arrived, came into their lives...found them. For just a moment Jonathon sees that boy again: the child, dark hair flying, crowing with delight as the gate swings into place and bangs, bounces, then bangs back and the latch settles.

Clark doesn't crow anymore, but he grins, part in glee, part in embarrassment that his father has seen him take such a childish pleasure when he's nearly a man. Jonathan only laughs. He still rides the gate once in awhile too. When no one is watching. Or he thinks no one is.

Clark checks the gate, careful, mindful, responsibly. Not that the cows would go far if it popped open, but the five a.m. milking came early enough without having to track down wandering bovines.

The buckets are empty, the gate to the barn unlatched and tied open. When it starts getting dark, the cows will wander in, or if it's warm enough, they'll stay out here in the pens, lowing soft into the night. Clark trots over, to help Jonathan gather up the empty grain buckets. They walk into the barn together, quiet the way it always is when they do chores together. Which is mostly.

Putting the buckets into the grain bins, Jonathan wonders if they talk more or less now than they did when Clark was a child. Less, probably, although most of what he could remember from those years past hadn't been anything like the conversations they'd been having lately. Then it was all about how to do things and what things were for and can I help -- where do babies come from, Pa?

The answers Jonathan had given Clark at nine were easier than the ones he was having to give lately. Where do I come from, Dad?

You caught a falling star, son...

Closer to the truth. As close as Jonathon Kent could get. Might ever get.

A few more chores before they could go in, get washed up and settle in for dinner. A few more minutes while Jonathan waits a little anxiously for the silence to break. Waiting for the next question Clark asks him that he can't answer. Another few minutes to feel his son slipping away from him a little bit at a time. To wonder how much of him will remain in Clark when his son comprehends what Jonathan has known for years. Known since the first time he realized his son -- who was not the flesh of his flesh or the blood of his blood and who found it easier to lift a John Deere tractor up to retrieve a lost ball, than climb under the thing to get it -- was meant for bigger things than a small farm in Kansas.

Jonathan will work this farm until he can't any longer. He knows that. Martha knows it too. They'd known and accepted that there wouldn't be anyone to leave it to. Cousins maybe. Nephews and nieces who'd probably sell it. Distant relatives who didn't know the feel of the dirt under their boots from the blood in their veins -- or how much the two are intertwined.

Jonathan Kent didn't believe in miracles. Not really, not for himself, for Martha. Miracles were for people who needed them, and he and Martha, they were doing okay. Had been. Accepted that when they died, who actually got the farm might not matter to them. They'd told themselves that, talked about it some, when they finally realized there would be no children. They'd even talked about adopting, but the talk had been slow...sporadic, and they didn't ever do anything about it.

Not until Clark. Not until disaster hit their small town. Not until what could have been grief became something of a miracle.

Settling that had most likely been the singularly most dishonest thing Jonathan Kent had ever done -- or contemplated doing. It had taken some time, taken some doing, maybe taken a bit of Jonathan's soul to get the papers drawn up. Taking help from a man he neither liked nor trusted, but because he had to. Had to because Martha was at home sewing like a mad thing to make new clothes for the boy -- their boy. It took money, to get those adoption papers drawn up and registered. Money Jonathan Kent didn't have -- the kind of money only one person in Smallville *did* have.

He'd been surprised Luthor hadn't asked for his farm. Hadn't asked for anything. Maybe he just liked having John Kent, so proud, so obviously disliking everything Luthor Corp stood for, having to come to Luthor for a favor. Maybe he'd come so close to losing his own son, that he appreciated the desire Jonathan had for one of his own.

Or maybe he was just waiting for the right time to collect on his debt.

It was between he and Luthor -- he'd always thought that. But now he wondered. Wondered what Lex was doing here. If the son was the precursor to the father returning.

"Dad, you done?" Clark's question broke him from his thoughts and he looked up, once more focusing his attention on the important things. Clark watched him with different eyes these days. Hesitant, uncertain. An uncertainty that Jonathan Kent knew had nothing to do with his age or his maturity. //What else haven't you told me? When were you going to?// He almost heard the question, did hear it , over and over in his head.

"Yeah. Yeah, son. I'm done," Jonathan said, automatically smiling for his son, unable to tear his eyes away. He was so tall, so handsome, responsible. A good boy. He'd be a good man. Jonathan felt it in his bones. A good son.

But not forever. Not for much longer. There was a destiny for Clark that Jonathon wasn't a part of. There was more for Clark than this farm, this earth. This life.

"Dad? You okay?" Clark was closer now, but he hadn't needed to use his gifts, his speed. Jonathon was lost again in his own thoughts, trying to steel himself against a loss he knew was coming. He reached out, hooked his fingers around the back of Clark's neck and gave him a little shake, smiled again.

"Yeah. Just woolgathering. Ready for supper?"

The worry in Clark's dark eyes, brown and green like the land around them, lifted and he ducked his head, grinning. "I've been ready. Let's go." He gave Jonathan a nudge with his shoulder, passing him, then waiting by the side door.

He'll be ready, Jonathan told himself. Whatever destiny lay in store for his son, he'd be ready. He prayed for it.

Prayed he wasn't hoping for a miracle he didn't believe in, to stop a destiny he didn't want, before it stole his son away from him.

~end~

 

10/24/2001


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